tempus fugit

We are officially in the Twilight Zone: Our “President” Calls a Column of Refugees an “Invasion” of “Very Bad People” and Appoints His Shill to be US-AG to shut down Mueller, possibly with complete impunity

2018-11-08

As a 64 year old person who sat through the House hearings on Nixon’s obstruction in the summer of 1974, with nothing better to do (I even recorded it) I find that in the twilight of my life I feel a strange sense of jamais vu. That’s right, the opposite of deja vu. This is nothing like then. Compared to this, the Watergate was a “pleasant dream.”

We officially entered the Twilight Zone AGAIN today with the White House repeating the doctored video of a White House aide trying to take the microphone away from a reporter during a press conference with the “President.” (He’s not a real President– he just plays one on TV.)

This doctored video, independently produced but ?retweeted by official sources, purports to show the reporter doing something he clearly did not do, either to many, many eyewitnesses, or to the original, or to a slowed down close-up. That the White House press secretary signed on to this obvious fabrication makes it complete: Everyone in the White House is a liar.

The doctored video attempts to back-up the White House’s explanation of why they took away the reporter’s press credentials afterwards– that the reporter TOUCHED the aide in a rude or assaultive (or any other) manner. That explanation was clearly false to everyone in the room. The real reason was that the “President” couldn’t handle the reporter’s sharp question asking why Trump called the refugee column advancing north from Central America an “invasion.” The reporter insisted on repeating the question and Trump simply couldn’t think of an answer that even made a complete sentence. Trump completely lost his temper and repeatedly demanded that the aide take away the reporter’s microphone.

The reporter politely refused to relinquish the microphone and maintained a firm grip upon his instrument of power. The aide attempted, without much success, four times to take it away, each time looking back at Trump to see if he would still insist. Then she ducked down, out of sight of the cameras.

If we’re going to just have a photoplay, as in “Reality TV”, why doesn’t Trump get actors to dress up as reporters and then he can call on them? I pine for those lost days, over fifty years ago, when President Kennedy handled news conferences on his own and really tried to lie convincingly to the press. He really tried to make the reporters like him and accept what he was trying to say. He went into great detail and, when he didn’t know the answer, he’d admit it. But this “President” can’t even handle five minutes of semi-hostile questions about his bald-faced, logic-free lies.

I suggest that every reporter from now on begin the questions with the same one that he couldn’t handle: Why are you calling a column of refugees an invasion?

Simultaneously, a man named Whitaker is suddenly the Attorney General of the United States. This makes no sense. This man has never been confirmed by the Senate to any post at least since 2004 and is obviously a shill for the Donald (he even admitted that he wanted to get a federal judgeship from Iowa, so he was trying to get Trump’s attention.) Worse, he’s committing an ethical breach by not recusing himself from the Russia investigation because he’s been beating the drums for a year or more about how the special investigator’s office is no good, very bad, really awful.

Whitaker is a lawyer but that doesn’t qualify him to be US AG any more than my having a driver’s license qualifies me for the Indy 500. He was obviously chosen to shut Mueller down– come to think of it, isn’t that an act of obstruction of justice?